June 2019

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

PODCAST No.83 –

Francesca Harper

Release Date: 6.19.19

TO DOWNLOAD PODCAST OR LISTEN:

• • iTunes: Subscribe, Listen, Rate Us HERE

  • Stitcher: Subscribe and Listen HERE

  • Any Smartphone Podcast app: Subscribe and Listen

ABOUT FRANCESCA

Francesca Harper (Artistic Director, Choreographer, and Dancer) is an internationally acclaimed, multifaceted artist. After being named Presidential Scholar in the Arts and performing at the White House her senior year of high school, she joined and performed soloist roles with the Dance Theater of Harlem and later as a Principal Dancer in William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt.

Harper has choreographed works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Tanz Graz, Hubbard Street II, Dallas Black Dance Theater, and her own company, the Francesca Harper Project, which was founded in 2005. Harper enjoys her appointment as an adjunct professor at New York University and the Juilliard School, and she is a former associate professor at Barnard College, and teacher/choreographer for the Ailey School, Fordham University’s BFA program, and the Susan Batson Studio.

Harper is the Artistic Director for the Movement Invention Project® and also recently served as the Movement Director for Nick Cave’s The Let Go, an exhibit commissioned by the Park Avenue Armory. Harper was awarded a two-year choreographic fellowship with Urban Bush Women, providing support toward her latest dance-theater work An Unapologetic Body, still currently in development.

Her recent engagements include choreographing a video shoot of  Wendy Whelan and Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s new collaboration via Sozo Artists, Inc., choreography and participation in a Planned Parenthood video campaign, a collaboration with Nona Hendryx, Carrie Mae Weems, and Niegel Smith in Refrigerated Dreams at the Public Theater, Pentacle’s Dance Series at the Rubin Museum, and touring in Bregenz, Austria, for Bregenzer Frühling. She will also present work in WOMEN/CREATE! – A Festival of Dance at New York Live Arts June 11th-16th, 2019.

Francesca Harper is committed to works rooted in artistic expression, empowerment, and social awareness. She is grateful for the daily opportunity to do what she loves and is passionate about inspiring others to live their dreams.

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

PODCAST No.82 –

Frida
Choreography: Jacqulyn Buglisi
Dancer: Jacqulyn Buglisi
Photo: Jack Mitchell ©

Jacqulyn Buglisi

Release Date: 6.5.19

TO DOWNLOAD PODCAST OR LISTEN:

• • iTunes: Subscribe, Listen, Rate Us HERE

  • Stitcher: Subscribe and Listen HERE

  • Any Smartphone Podcast app: Subscribe and Listen

ABOUT JACQULYN

In her four decade long career, Buglisi has made an indelible impact on the field of dance.  Renowned forhighly visual, imagistic dances that use literature, history and heroic archetypes as a primary source, Buglisi’s ballets are sweeping, passionate and always rooted in a strong physical technique.   She is a prolific choreographer creating more than 100 ballets for Buglisi Dance Theatre and commissioned worldwide including Suspended Women on the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre;  Butterflies and Demonsin partnership with the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women; Ninfee for the Richmond Ballet; The Four Elements for the Flamenco Festival presented in Madrid, Sadler’s Wells, London and New York’s City Center; Prague International Festival, Ananda Shankar Performing Arts Company, India; the Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble, China; the Martha Graham Dance Company, North Carolina Dance Theatre, Joyce Trisler Danscompany, Teatro Danza Contemporanea di Roma for which she was a co-founder in 1969; American Repertory Ballet; Ailey II;  and Ice Theatre of New York. Currently, she is creating a new dance for the UCSB Dance Company and the Marymount Manhattan College Dance Company. Buglisi’s ballet Threshold had its Italian premiere in Milan with Carla Fracci’s Italian Ballet Company at the Teatro Nuovo and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Opera House.  In 2001, she created Requiem to the soaring music of Gabriel Fauré,a transcendent experience and amplification of the human spirit. Anna Kisselgoff raves in The New York Times of the ballet’s powerful images, stunning…extravagant and beautiful.Breaking new ground, Buglisi collaborated with Venezuela’s leading environmental artist Jacobo Borges to create her trilogy Blue Cathedral, Rain, and Sand.  She has collaborated with composers Paola Prestini, Libby Larsen, Tan Dun, Glen Velez, Jennifer Higdon, Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Daniel Brewbaker, Reza Vali;Andy Teirstein; cellist, Maya Beiser; Flamenco Guitarist, Gerardo Nunez, the Cassatt String Quartet, the Syracuse University Symphony Orchestra and Singers; lighting designers Clifton Taylor and Jack Mehler; mannequin maker Ralph Pucci; and Italian artist Rossella Vasta on the Table of Silence Project 9/11,a site-specific performance ritual for peace performed at Lincoln Center by 180 dancers, six musicians and chorus of nine, and seen via live stream across the U.S. in all 50 states and worldwide in 129 countries.  For uniting the dance community through the Table of Silence Project, Buglisi was named a “New Yorker for Dance” by Dance/NYC and received Proclamations from NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio.  The Dance Notation Bureau is creating a Labanotation score of the Table of Silence Project.

During her 30 year association with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Buglisi was a Principal Dancer for 12 years, performing the classic roles and those created for her by Miss Graham. She danced in Ms. Graham’s honor on the nationally televised CBS Presentation of the Kennedy Center Honors and the PBS film An Evening of Dance and Conversation with Martha Graham. Buglisi’s duet Sospiriwas performed by the Martha Graham Company at New York City Center (1989).  Coached by Jane Sherman, she performed Ruth St. Denis’ solos internationally including Lyon Biennale De La Danse and on film in Trailblazers of American Modern Dance, andThe Spirit of Denishawn.